


Drasanti Pathein

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Pulo Prabang, Stephen considers the fate of Andrew Wray</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drasanti Pathein

_How I regret what a blind fool I have been. The realisation is worse than a draft of the most bitter gall because it is not I who have paid for my blindness, but JA. I am so horribly aggrieved that nothing I can possibly do for the rest of my life will make it up to him. The least penetration should have announced that which is now obvious: that Wray was a spy, that he had multiple confederates in Whitehall and London and that he has nurtured his loathing for JA over many years, that he intended for JA to die the Bay of Zambra, as well as poor Harte, who was a dead man as soon as Wray married Fanny. Wray's debts to me alone were enough impetus to plan Zambra and Harte's death. Wray played a dangerous game to see JA dead and when JA survived Zambra, Wray's next plan was to affect JA's ruin._

_Jesus, Mary and Joseph, how could I have been so obtuse? Could it have been that my nightly dose of tincture of laudanum dulled my wits to such an extent? And after the wholly botched attempt tonight at Buttons, Wray is a bird a-wing, and there is virtually no chance of him ever being taken, ever being charged and convicted, which leaves JA's future a black one. It is intemperate, indeed unprofessional of me to feel such visceral loathing for Wray,but loathe I do. Truly, there is no vengeance on Wray that I could ever take that would make up for JA's ruin or even give me any satisfaction whatever._

_I have left word with JB for a meeting as soon as possible, but I do not see how this horrendous mess will ever be made right. There is simply too much to embarrass Whitehall for any of the truth to ever come out in a way that could be of any real assistance to JA. God help me._

Stephen read over this old journal entry. No, nothing he could to do to Wray would ever make it right for Jack. There was no possibility of confession, arrest, trial or anything of the sort. The only thing that Stephen could do would not be for Jack, it would be for himself. Beyond the satisfaction of ruining Wray's life by the failure of the negotiations of the French in Pulo Prabang and necessary exile there, Stephen knew that there was a further satisfaction that he would seek: killing Wray.

Stephen felt it in the pit of his soul. It was not rational; it would do nothing for Jack. It would not give Stephen the satisfaction of a right being wronged, because it would not result in a reversal of verdict. Still, Stephen knew that it would come to pass. He would have vengeance, a very atypical and even repulsive desire to him. Stephen prided himself on being beyond that, especially as it had nothing to do with his own honour. Yet he would so act. He felt he could not do otherwise. His feelings for Jack made anything else impossible. Andrew Wray would not live out his natural life as long as Jack Aubrey's rightful existence had been destroyed. Jack had not been killed in body, but had suffered worse than death in soul. Order would be restored to the universe.

Stephen lay on his bed in the brothel considering this. He had been an indifferent scholar of Greek, but Aeshchylus' _Oresteia_ had made a significant impression on him. He still remembered _The Libation-Bearers_ as though he had read it yesterday. Orestes avenging his father's murder in the only way that was acceptable – killing his own mother-- because _δρασαντι παθειν_ – _“drasanti pathein”_ – “the doer must pay.” That was the only justice that was acceptable to the gods. Indeed. The doer must pay. “To him that doeth it shall be done by.” That was justice. Exile in a foreign country after actual and attempted murder as well as the loss of the entire crew of the _Pollux_ was not justice. No, killing Wray was not Christian charity, but it was justice or as much justice as could ever be had for Jack Aubrey. Stephen did not need to be hectored by the Erinyes. His own heart could not rest easy with Wray alive and unpunished and Jack's suffering unavenged. Wray's loss at cards to Stephen had precipitated his first attempt to have an end to Jack Aubrey and Stephen was not insensible of that fact. Wray had turned his loss to Stephen Maturin into an excuse to kill Jack. Ultimately, Wray's unpaid debt to Stephen had given him the idea and the impetus to frame Jack for rigging the stock exchange and put the gears in motion to destroy Jack's life.

It had troubled Stephen as he and Jack walked the street in Pulo Prabang and had seen Ledward and Wray together, Jack had said he felt no ill will towards Wray and Ledward, to the point that he would not kick Wray. Stephen had thought that admirable but it had not unfortunately diminished one iota his own bloodlust for Wray. It burned in him that he would not rest as long as Wray lived, relatively unpunished, spared the gallows or some other ignominious fate. Wray had spent years, apparently, planning the ruin of Jack Aubrey. He had gone to incredible lengths to insure Jack's humiliation, degradation and ruin. Had Wray demanded satisfaction years ago when Jack accused him of cheating and actually succeeded in killing Jack, Stephen knew that he would have no legitimate grievance against him. The matter would have been left to lie there. Instead, Stephen was ready to commit a mortal sin, which he could only partially justify as service to king and country. He would kill Wray for Jack and he would never tell him he had done so. Stephen was indifferent to Ledward. Necessity would probably require that he be similarly dispatched.

It was in the Marshalsea, sitting with his destroyed friend that Stephen had conceived that nothing short of Wray's death would ever give him any peace for what Jack had been through. Buying _Surprise_ , outfitting her, getting her a letter of marque, procuring a mission for them – none of that was any salve for Jack's being dismissed from the Royal Navy. Jack was still crushed, his entire understanding of and faith in the world utterly destroyed. Stephen had spent each night in the jail with Jack, with a broken, pained, hollow and almost destroyed Jack. Stephen had made love to Jack as a distraction, a not very effective distraction from the pain that was so intense that it radiated from Jack's entire body. Stephen had felt Jack's pain in his own heart and it was staggering and he knew it was not one one hundredth of what Jack felt.

Jack was shut down, locked in his own misery. His ability to feel or express any emotion had been diminished significantly. The ensuing numbness was his only protection against the complete destruction of his heart. He could not in any real way share the extent of his pain with Stephen or anyone and retain any sense of dignity. Stephen had seen similar situations in people who had been tortured or otherwise horribly abased, struggling not to be abject, destroyed. Stephen had experienced it himself, being carried from Port Mahón on a shutter, lying there thinking how the Jews averted their eyes to save the dignity of a corpse, since it could not look away and then Stephen had been in the place of that corpse, the old _Sophies_ acting with the utmost gentility for his dignity, the _Livelies_ less so, some frankly curious, staring in horror and disbelief at his broken body and at his gore, doing what the French could not have done, utterly abasing Stephen and robbing him of any dignity he had retained. Stephen could not then turn his own head or look away. He had lain there and seen their eyes and their faces and in that instant, it made him want to die.

Stephen had rarely seen such a degree of suffering as Jack's. It actually worried him professionally that Jack could conceivably die from his broken heart, as Stephen had seen it happen before. Jack's entire life was the Navy and that had now been stolen from him. Jack told Stephen he did not live on land, he merely existed there. Stephen's own heart had broken for Jack over and over and his desire for vengeance had grown. He said multiple prayers to Our Lady asking forgiveness for his own bloodlust, but none for its dissipation. Now he had travelled half a world away and ended up right in the center of Andrew Wray's path.

The note had come so easily with the requisite fees paid, with the exact direction and time that Stephen could wait for Ledward and Wray, in an alley, behind a kind of a club that catered to dissolute foreigners. Stephen had his rifle in sparkling order and had stood like a fox outside of a rabbit's hole, stock still in anticipation, his eyes reptilian and cold once more. The door had opened into the alley and Wray had tripped out first with Ledward behind him. They were in their cups, apparently. Stephen heard the door being barred behind them. He stood up straight and met Wray's eyes. Wray's face blanched, eyes wide, gasping one silent but easily deduced word:”Maturin.” Stephen pulled the trigger. Wray died almost instantly, certainly in less than one minute's time. Stephen then shot Ledward before Ledward had even seemed to understand what had happened. Stephen laid the rifle and its twin next to the bodies and walked out of the alley down the street and back to the brothel. Within an hour's time, there was a messenger with a note from Wu Han, requesting that Dr. Maturin meet Wu Han's porters on the way to Dr. van Buren's house.

Stephen had not felt much of anything – no guilt, nor jubilation. That in itself disturbed him somewhat. “Do I feel a sense of relief, of justice?” he queried himself and came up with no answer. He had always known since Mahón that he would die for Jack Aubrey. Now Stephen knew he would kill for him as well, as Jack had killed an indeterminate number of men in Mahón to save Stephen's life and would have killed any number the situation necessitated. It had no doubt grieved Jack more than this grieved Stephen, violating all rules of engagement of which Jack was sensible and with which he had been reared virtually his entire life in the service. Stephen had point blank killed Dubreuil and Pontet-Canet in Boston, somewhat coldbloodedly with no compunction, since it meant his and Diana's lives. Pulo Prabang was different but Stephen still felt not one scintilla of guilt. He would make it to confession the next day and pray that no ill fate befell him before he would be confessed. He would light four dozen candles, make whatever contrition and move on.

Stephen and van Buren finished the dissections. Van Buren gave Stephen the good news about the treaty and Stephen had gone back to the ship, awakened Jack in the middle of the night and importuned him. Jack's wonderful quality of being fully conscious in less than five minutes had meant he and Stephen had been able to engage in amorous congress long and hard while virtually everyone else slept. “Stephen, what a fellow you are!” Jack had laughed quietly when Stephen had set upon him, cold sober and consumed with lust, actually making Jack blush in the darkened cabin.

Stephen had only wished they could have continued all night and all the next day, but finally exhaustion won over him and he staggered back to his cot, exhausted and played out. The happiness in Jack's face was the sweetest music to his soul as he almost instantly fell asleep. “My soul be damned,” Stephen thought. “Jack is avenged: _Δρασαντι παθειν_ – the doer had paid.”


End file.
